Watermelon Girl
by Chaos Orchid Ron Dow75
22.1 Father and Mother Missing
[Seppuku!]
That being totally unexpected(!) stopped Ranma. "You want me to cut off your head?!" S/he was more angry with her Old Man than he* or she had ever been, amplified by the power of the brooch s/he didn't know was the Reversal Jewel. Her thirst for revenge, though, did not include forcing it or him to commit belly-slashing hari kari. Yet? "I don't have a sword."
[Your mother does!]
"She wants you dead?!"
[You, too, if you're not a man among men]
Ranma screamed into the air, "Because of you! I CAN'T be a man–For MONTHS!" Again, like earlier, s/he was so overwhelmed with emotions her fighting reflexes were short circuited.
The sheared panda was holding up, [It's in the contract] but dropped it [...] when it saw the redhead's battle aura suddenly flare with bonfire intensity! He* had never seen his* heir display such raw energy! It was ki-charged with pride–MALE pride!
It weakened as yang interacted with her yin ki: the female essence of the cursed body, brain and the small amount Ranma himself* possessed. But the male essence reasserted itself, determined to
"Tired…." S/he dropped to her knees. "I overdid it again!" S/he was holding herself off the pavement, but in her right fist s/he was gathering what grasp of his* "Pride of the White Tiger"!
Panda charged at the artist outside with her sketchbook! Startled, seeing the long, sharp claws, she stumbled backwards and fell!
The mostly pink-and-gray animal ducked through the open door of her gallery.
Ranma's fist opened in frustration, the blast shot skyward!
And was gone. S/he finally collapsed to the cement.
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The soles of her tights ragged, s/he carried the high heels in her hands as s/he ran as fast as her fatigue allowed. Ranma was determined to get back to the Tendōs' to confront her nemesis again!
Inside, her legs aching, s/he climbed the stairs to the guest room.
The Old Man's travel pack was missing from the oshīre closet!
Too tired to scream, s/he stumbled down the stairs, the hall…to the common room. "Which way did he go?!"
"Oh, my!"
Akane, "Ranma! Why are you dressed like that!?"
"And in makeup, too," Nabiki smirked, pulling out a camera. *Click*
"Uncle Saotome left by the back gate, Ranma," Kasumi told her.
S/he immediately turned –and fell to the tatami floor. Rolling onto her back, s/he pulled up the blouse and tried to pull the omamori charm off of her lower belly. "I am gonna go after him! I won't let you stop me!" Weakened, it was an even more useless effort now.
"Ranma, Ranma," Kasumi sighed. "The kami is aware of how exhausted you are and that can effect the baby."
"Embryo," Nabiki clarified.
Spent, Ranma got up to where s/he could rest her arms and chin on the table.
"You're back," Ukyō said, coming in from the outside. She was carrying the bassinet and the reborn doll in it. "It's time for you to learn how to be a mother(!)" she practically demanded.
"Not now! I'm too tired."
"It comes with the job."
"I didn't ask for the job."
"Tough. You've been drafted." And she set the bassinet on the table beside the pigtailed girl.
Picking up the bassinet, Kasumi saved Ranma. "I understand your feelings, Ukyō-san, but, please, understand Ranma's. You, above everybody else, has shown that capability." (Akane frowned at that remark.) "Until a few months go, Ranma didn't have to adjust to anything but what a boy has to adjust to. Then, without preparation or warning, he has to experience in absolute detail what it is like to be a girl."
"Half the time," Nabiki said, still amused. "Which means it will take half again longer for the boy to get used to being girl."
Kasumi set the bassinet down in front of her. "We at least were raised to know we could, and probably would, become pregnant. And mothers."
"Twenty percent," Nabiki said.
"What?" Akane said.
"I read that 80% of all women who have ever lived had kids. I intend to be among the 20%."
Kasumi brought out the baby doll gently out and presented it to Nabiki. "You're investing in the future in another way, then. Remember, I now control your foreign assets."
Nabiki didn't take the doll; but her eyes told that she surrendered, and allowed the doll to be placed in her arms.
"The baby doesn't like her!" Ukyō protested. "It's not moving! It's like it's dead!"
Kasumi wasn't happy, but she left the reborn doll where it was. "It can't die. It hasn't yet moved up to being a soul. The tsukumogami will respond to those who give it attention."
Akane shivered. "If it doesn't like the attention it's getting, it'll turn into a poltergeist: Destroying things! People!"
Nabiki jumped as the doll twitched in her arm! The Ice Queen had facade cracked. Kasumi was pleased.
Meanwhile, Ranma hadn't really been paying attention to what was going on around her. S/he was thinking about his* mom and how to find her.
Or not. Would she reject him, even expect him* to kill himself* when she found out he* was just a man-among-men half the time? Less: He* couldn't even be half a man until after she had become a mother.
Groan* Some women don't want to be a grandmother. They hate being called obā-san. If s/he had to commit hari kari while still pregnant…
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Ranma had changed back to his* trademark Chinese outfit and was headed back to the stairs. It was almost time for dinner. Something to look forward to. A stomach grumbled. It wasn't hers.
It was about the only noise Soun was making as he came into the house.
Ranma lost her footing and slid halfway down the stairs on her too womanly butt. So intent on revenge, s/he had barely noticed what s/he had done to him with the clippers.
Tendō's long hair was gone, trimmed on the sides to look like a samurai out of a period movie. He even had a lock of hair tied to itself that extended onto his bald forehead-to-crown!
Then s/he remembered the last time they talked! "What do you know about my mom!"
22.2 A Tale of Two Mothers
Startled, Soun reached for his katana. He, too, had been thinking on how much he now looked like a classic samurai. The sword was in his imagination. "Y, your mother?"
"What did pop say about her!" S/he landed centimeters from him. "Have you met her!?"
"Let, let us sit down with your father and discuss–"
"Pop ran off on a 'trainin' trip': Yeah, right! The coward!"
"Well, obviously your father–" He saw her reaction to the name and changed it to, "Genma knows more on the topic than I do.
"I, uh, had met her. Your mother. It was…"
Kasumi called, "Father, Ranma, come and have dinner!"
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Ranma had left the Reversal Jewel with her girl-disguise clothes. The boost in its power that Cologne had given it had finally dissipated. S/he was almost sure that Tendō wouldn't be able to escape like the Old Man had. Food, again, became a priority for her.
Sukiyaki was the main course, meant to sweeten the mood.
Soun was at his usual place at the head of the table. Kasumi chose to kneel beside Nabiki.
It was crowded on Ranma's side. To her right was Akane. To her left was…the bassinet. Beside it, Ukyō acted as its nanny. She would touch it or coo to it to keep it moving. She said nothing about the reborn doll, but wouldn't let Ranma forget it was there.
Nobody was saying much, not even Nabiki. If she did, she could very well be handed the possessed doll and be given a maternal arts lesson.
Kasumi took up her role as "Peculiar Serious-one". "I remember meeting Auntie Saotome. But I was barely nine at the time, so my memories are not clear."
Ranma frowned, "Why didn't you tell me?"
"You didn't ask." Then she realized that was the standard, and very Japanese, excuse. She bowed, "I am sorry! I should have thought to have told you before."
Ranma grumbled, unable to resent the gentle soul. Then asked, "What was she like?"
"What was she like?..." she thought back. Then, "Oh, my!
"What I remember most about her is the color of her hair. It was dark but had a reddish tint to it! I wondered if she dyed it." She gazed at Ranma, uncertain. "I now don't think she had. Looking at you, I see her. As if you were her daughter."
"Mom has red hair?" S/he touched hers. He* felt like a she.
For a moment: "I look this way 'cuz of a curse! I look like the girl who drowned."
Kasumi fell silent. But Akane spoke up, "You were nine? Then I was six, right? Where could I have seen Ranma's mom…"
Nabiki thought out the answer. She didn't like it. "Mommy's funeral."
Kasumi, "I didn't want to remind anybody."
Soun was forced to admit, "That is correct." He began to tear up, "It was the last time I saw the Saotomes together. They had come to pay respects to our most dearly departed." He sobbed, now.
Ranma ignored his pain, "Where was I!? I don't remember no goin' to no graveyard when I was six!"
Akane, "None of us remember meeting Ranma before he came here as a girl!"
"Ask Genma!" was the only answer Soun could manage.
Nabiki, "Knowing your him, he probably thought you going to your martial arts lessons at a dōjō was more important."
Ukyō had picked up the baby doll and rested its head on a shoulder. "I know Ranma can be dense, but how could he not remember his ma had red hair?"
Ranma asked that of herself, now. Her frown deepened, "He kept changing what he said about her. Kept pointing to women he said reminded him of her. He messed up my memories!" Her fist came down onto one of the wooden frames that held the tatami mats in place. It shook the floor. And the table, threatening to spill food.
Soun wailed, "The Fujinami Technique! The master used it to confuse the witnesses to his crimes! If they could not be sure of what he looked like in a lineup or among mugshots, he couldn't be effectively charged!"
Nabiki, "That's interesting to know.
"Now, as a 'wild guess', I assume your friend gaslighted you, too. You don't remember his wife's name."
"It was ten years ago. And…" the weeping man deflated, "I, I was still in terrible grief over loss of the most precious woman of my life.
"Yaeko! A martial artist is prepared lay down their life to defend the weak –But why did you have to!"
"Father, Father," Kasumi said, moving to comfort him.
She said to the others, "I think dinner is over."
Everybody fell silent and only hesitated for a moment to get up and leave.
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Three and a reborn doll were out in the yard on this still hot and humid summer evening. They all felt awkward.
Akane was the first to find something to say. "Um, I don't think dad could remember anybody's name who came to the funeral. There were a lot people who had come to pay their respects. And to honor mom." It was her turn to cry. But there was more in them than grief. There was pride. "Mom had save many children when the dragon dance puppet came to life."
Saying that, her eyes shifted to the tsukumogami in the bassinet. She sickened!
But she reminded herself her mom's sacrifice was exactly why she became a martial artist. She owed it to her.
"A dragon costume with a bunch of people in it?" Ranma. He had played hooky from dōjō classes that day. He hadn't missed classes after that.
"Oh, wow. Oh, wow," Ukyō said. "I was in Tokyō when that happened."
And so was Kunō. And so was Ryōga. …And so was Shampoo.
Destiny? The reborn baby had no destiny.
Could Ranma be the mother of the reset?
Or will s/he, too, be another heroic mother?
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NOTES to Section 22.1:
In imagining the death scene, Ranma and Genma are shown preparing to slash their bellies open – hari kari – while Nodoka stands over them with her sword, ready to shorten their suffering by decapitating them – seppuku. So, there is a difference in meaning between the terms.
Without modern medical care, a woman has an estimate 23% chance of dying during, after pregnancy or while birthing.
NOTES to Section 22.2:
The "Fujinami Technique" is named after what Ryūnosuke's father did in "Urusei Yatsura" (Lum). As far as I know, the girl raised as a boy never did find out who her mother was.
Happosai pulled a Fujinami when he tricked Natsumi and Kurumi in the anime-only OVA Parts 1 : "I'll Be the One to Carry On".
The mother of the Tendō sisters has no canon name. Yaeko means "multi-layered", talented. I have always seen her as being better at taking care of house-and-family than Kasumi, better at handling the family finances than Nabiki, and better at martial arts than Akane.
There is no canon story on how Mrs. Tendō died, too. The story I am using is one I created decades ago to be a climax to a series that I only got a few chapters into. This story doesn't require a detailed account of what happened then; but knowing the impact of losing a mother will challenge Ranma to rethink his* priorities.